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Homemade Potato Gnocchiby Tony M in Rouxbe Videos An easy-to-make Italian delicacy: hand-made potato gnocchi that melts in your mouth.
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Step 1: Cooking and Ricing the Potato
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To start the gnocchi, preheat your oven to 400º degrees Fahrenheit. Place the potatoes onto a sheet of foil, add the salt and water, and wrap. Bake for approximately 40 minutes, or until cooked through. Peel the potatoes while they are still hot. Cut and rice the potatoes, making sure they don’t pile up in one spot. Let the potatoes cool completely before proceeding. |
Step 2: Making the Dough
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To make the dough, sprinkle the potatoes with a good amount of flour. Aerate the potatoes with a bench scraper, and then add the salt, nutmeg and white pepper. Break up the egg yolks and pour them over the potatoes. Cover the surface again with more flour. Continue to cut and gently lift the dough. Test the dough by squeezing it gently in your hand. It shouldn’t stick. Add a bit more flour, if needed. Once done, shape the dough into a rectangle and fold it a few times, using your fingertips to bring it together. Flatten the dough out until it is about the thickness of your finger. Sprinkle with flour and let rest about 5 to 10 minutes. Cut strips of dough, about the width of your finger, and sprinkle with flour so they don’t stick to each other. Roll out each strip and cut the ropes into 3/4 - inch pieces. Separate them slightly, and flour them well, so they don’t stick together.
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Step 3: Cutting, Shaping and Storing the Gnocchi
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For a more rustic look, you can leave the gnocchi as is. Shaping the dough makes them look better, and also creates a little pocket to capture the sauce. This can be done with or without a gnocchi paddle. Once done, sprinkle with flour and cover with a clean dry cloth. Fresh gnocchi can sit at room temperature for 4 to 5 hours before cooking. You can even freeze gnocchi raw. Just place them onto a tray, making sure they aren’t touching each other. Once frozen, transfer to a plastic freezer bag and freeze for up to 2 months. Cook the gnocchi from frozen and serve with your favorite sauce. |
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Comments
I made the gnocchi and froze them. Today I cooked them using the the pan fried gnocchi with lemon and sage recipe. Not so good. Sauce was great, but something was wrong with the gnocchi. They felt as if they were not cooked...limp..slightly slimy and stuck to the pan. They lacked any body. Any suggestions? I love gnocchi and was really looking forward to them. :< Dottie
If you're going to cook frozen gnochhi, make sure they go in plenty of boiling, salted water ONE AT THE TIME. If they are thrown in, they will quickly cool the water and sit at the bottom as a lump. Make sure they float, take one out and taste to make sure they are cooked through. Also, frozen gnocchi will cook a bit more starchy than fresh ones, so may require being re-freshed in cold ice bath to remove the starches, set in the fridge AND THEN pan fried in the butter.
I would love to try this recipe but don't have a ricer. Can you suggest an alternative method?
Thanks.
Charmian
You could let the potatoes cool slightly enough to handle them (still warm though) and then push them through a stainless steel colander. The collander needs to be one with small holes though. Or you could gently mash them being careful to not over mash them.
The results from a ricer though are much better as it actually helps to aerate the potatoes as well.
I fully cook the gnocchi, briefly cool them in ice water (or just gently rinse in a sieve with cold water if I am lazy), let them dry in a single layer on paper towels, and then quick freeze them on a cookie sheet in a single layer. Wrap well, defrost what you need. I like to warm them in plenty of unsalted butter, then put them (about 1 1/2 layers, if that makes sense) in a small baking dish, and then sprinkle with parmesan. Bake in a hot oven or broil until cheese and gnocchi are lightly browned
Do you find that the gnocchi stick to the paper towel though?
Rinsing the gnocchi helps with sticking, plus I don't leave them on the paper very long. Since making gnocchi is time consuming and messy, I like to make 2 or 3 batches because once you are set up, it does'nt take that much longer and you are set for impromptu side dishes.
A friend from Sicily once had us over for dinner and had us help with shaping the gnoccis. Instead of a paddle, he simply handed us each a fork! It's a bit different from using the paddle, as it's a quick sort of back-and-forth movement, but the end result is the same shell shape with that striped pattern on the outside. Once you got the move right, you could churn them out quite rapidly, and it was a lot of fun.